Jo in her article, The Oculus Buzz caused by Linden Lab, is discussing the reputation of Second Life. She has some good ideas. We know several Lindens, including Rod, read her blog. So, may be some of those ideas will get picked up or at least shape some of the Lab’s PR work.

Jo believes, and I think with good reason, that the Oculus will bring a second renaissance to SL. Of course the ToS change may offset that… I do believe we will see an up tic in the number of people entering Second Life. I can’t decide if I believe the Rift will change the retention rate. I flip-flop on that point.

ATI/AMD Crashes

It seems the new Catalyst driver for ATI/AMD video cards is causing a problem for some users. See: AMD Catalyst 13.9 Driver causes viewer 3.6.6 crashes! There is a Catalyst 3.10 beta that is out. A few people are reporting problems. Some feel it is just a problem in the SL 3.6.6 viewer.

I am not an ATI user, so I have no idea. But, you can get a RC candidate 3.6.7 viewer. I have not heard if this resolves the driver problem. The problem does seem to be on the viewer side, as people have tried rolling back driver versions with no luck.

There are so few reporting problems it is hard to tell what is going on. If your SL/Catalyst setup is working, don’t update until the problem is resolved.

SL Viewer 3.6.7

There are 4 versions of the 3.6.7 SL Viewer in the viewer release pipeline.

Inara points out in her recent viewer updates that Snowstorm is the oldest and best tested candidate and would be a logical candidate for next release. But, PR pressure is likely to push SL Share out ahead of it. That seems plausible to me.

TPV Meeting

The planned topics for the Third Party Viewer Meeting last Friday were:

Release Candidates

SLShare (Facebook Connect)

Google Breakpad

Snowstorm

Maintenance

Interest List

Group Bans

Plus what ever the third party developers thought to bring up.

I suspect discussion was centered around SL Share and getting it implemented in TPV’s.

Google Breakpad is an error reporting system for software development. Snowstorm has third party addons. The Maintenance version has the Linden fixes and changes.

The meeting was last Friday (9/27). The video is up already. I have yet to take time to listen/watch. I may get to it this weekend or early in week 40. Inara may transcribe it before I get to it. So, if your impatient, like me, watch us both. One of us will get to it.

Second Life Simulator Monitoring

There is some new sim monitoring software showing up in the Market Place. The Wiki got an update about it: SL Monitoring. The Market Place item is here: ANSIs Performance PRIM Version 1.097. This product is a service that runs L$250/week. You can see a demo here: GeHostet.de Use ID: lookover and Pasword: demo.

A video:

Saving Second Base

There is an awareness event planned for October about fighting breast cancer. With the release of Lola Tangos this is obviously a much bigger thing in SL.

Who better to get right into this than the Pornstars Blog with: Saving Second Base! (NSFW) They have made some posters sort of like baseball cards. If you need something to make assign or use to participate, check it out.

Berry’s SL Share

Controllers

No this isn’t about politicians.

With the anticipation of Oculus Rift game controllers have become a frequent topic of conversation for SL residents. I should have my eBay bought LEAP Motion controller this coming week. With shipping I still saved $20+.

Second Life is one of the places where people want to be free and cut loose to experiment. America WAS a place of second chances. The loss of this freedom is no small thing. I am perpetually amazed that people are allowing to it be taken away so easily.